The Best Exercise to Lower Your Blood Pressure

According to a 2024 study published by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 48.1% of Americans have high blood pressure. That number, which represents nearly 120 million people, is absolutely staggering. Many of those individuals are under the care of a physician, and if you’re in that number, your doctor has probably already told you about the importance of a proper diet and regular exercise. Your physician may also have you on a prescription medication to keep your blood pressure under control.

Under no circumstances should you make any changes to your medication regimen without consulting with your doctor. Ideally, you can implement some or all of these exercises, along with a well-balanced diet, to get your blood pressure under control without the use of medications, but that’s not a decision for you to make on your own. Instead, you should work with your doctor to monitor your BP over an extended period of time to determine what sort of progress you’re making.

People often wonder what are the best exercises to lower blood pressure. Obviously, it’s important to understand how different forms of exercise impact different body systems. Here’s a look at some of the most effective workouts to help you get your blood pressure under control. Before we dive into those workouts, let’s understand a bit more about high blood pressure, what causes it, and why it’s dangerous.

Image by Adobe Stock

Blood Pressure 101

Your blood pressure is the measurement of how forcefully your blood flows through your arteries. Arteries are the vessels responsible for carrying blood from the heart to the rest of your body. If you struggle with high blood pressure, it means that the force at which your blood pumps through your arteries is too high.

High blood pressure is often referred to as the “silent killer” because it doesn’t always present with other symptoms. This means that while 119-plus million Americans currently know that they have high blood pressure, it’s safe to assume that millions more have no idea that they’re in danger. In addition to putting added strain on the heart, and increasing the risk of heart attack, high blood pressure also leads to heart disease and issues with other organs, since they don’t always get as much blood as they need.

Exercising regularly lowers blood pressure by reducing the stiffness in your arteries, allowing blood to flow more freely. You’ll usually notice the effects of exercise on your blood pressure as soon as your workout ends, which is why regular exercise is so important. While these impacts will always be more notable immediately after you exercise, you can soften your arteries which has long-term effects on your blood pressure.

Image by Adobe Stock

Short, Brisk Walks

Depending on your age, joint health, amount of free time that you have, and a litany of other factors, you may not have time to walk several miles every day, a concept that we’ll discuss in more detail in a bit. There are several studies that indicate that short, brisk walks also have the potential to lower your blood pressure.

Many health experts believe that taking multiple short walks each day is the best way to manage your blood pressure. According to the CDC, a brisk pace is defined as a walk between 3.5 and 4 MPH. Experts believe that if you can get three 10-minute walks in each day, you can lower your blood pressure. This is great news for those who don’t have a ton of time to exercise. Instead of giving up because you don’t have hours to spend walking, find a few blocks of time throughout the day and get those steps in.

Long walks are also completely acceptable ways of lowering blood pressure. In fact, there is some research out there that indicates longer walks, even those that are at a slower pace, have a greater impact on blood pressure. If you have the time and access to an area where you can take a long walk.

Hiking

Obviously, this workout only works if you live in an area with hiking trails. If you’re living in the city, you aren’t too likely to find a nice nature trail, but if there’s one nearby, a nature hike is considered one of the most effective ways of lowering blood pressure. In fact, some cardiologists believe that regular hiking has the potential to lower your blood pressure by up to 10 points.

This is because hiking requires you to use different muscle systems in the body. First, most hiking trails are on an incline, which forces you to push a bit harder to get up them. Additionally, the uneven terrain activates different muscle systems. What do muscle systems have to do with blood pressure? Your muscles require blood to function at their best. While we often think of different organs needing blood (and they certainly do), getting your heart to pump blood to the muscles in your core and lower body that are activated during a hike also strengthens the heart and lowers blood pressure.

Image by Adobe Stock

Isometric Exercises

When most people think of exercises that lower blood pressure, they think of aerobic exercises such as walking, hiking, jogging, and more. While those exercises are certainly all viable options, many experts now point to isometric exercises such as planks, squats, and bridges as useful tools for bringing your blood pressure down without medication.

A study focused on research conducted between 1990 and 2023 that included more than 15,000 people who took part in clinical studies over those 33 years. While the research indicated that virtually every type of exercise lowered blood pressure, a fact that we’ve known for decades, it found that isometric exercises like the ones mentioned above were quite helpful. While this shouldn’t be seen as an opportunity to avoid hiking, biking, or walking, it is good to know that there are some blood-pressure-lowering workouts that you can perform in your home.

Jogging or Running

Jogging or running has been shown to lower blood pressure, thanks in large part to the added intensity. From a physiological perspective, the way that jogging or running lowers your blood pressure is similar to walking or jogging. Walking or jogging is just a higher-intensity workout, which gets blood pumping faster. In addition to improving heart health by pushing blood to different muscle groups, it’s also great for pulmonary health.

However, it’s important to note that you should get into jogging or running slowly and carefully. If you haven’t been getting regular exercise, trying to push yourself to go out and run multiple miles can be dangerous. Start by walking at a brisk pace for half a mile and then try to jog a quarter mile. Alternating between the two types of exercise can help you ease yourself into a more intense workout.

Image by Adobe Stock

Swimming

Swimming also offers pulmonary benefits in addition to its cardiovascular benefits. Interestingly enough, studies have found that swimming is especially helpful for people 60 and older who have high blood pressure. Some experts believe that this is because it’s easier on the joints than some high-impact workouts like jogging or brisk walking. A recent study involved studying a group of swimmers for 12 weeks, each of whom swam for 45 continuous minutes each day, and found that they lowered their systolic blood pressure by nine points in three months.

Before you commit to any new workout routine, it’s important that you consult with your physician, as he or she will be able to look at your overall health and give you better guidance about what sort of workouts are safe for you to take part in. Remember, lowering your blood pressure is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s OK to start slowly and build up to longer, more intense workouts. The goal is to become a healthier version of yourself, and that starts by getting your blood pressure under control.